The best I can say now is that it was a reasonable attempt at a smear job via casual Google-fu.

Point of fact, it was Systema's old "psychic energy forum" that told me all about he quackery they use(d). The links posted were fair game and all consistent with the BS on the official Systema forum, just easier to put them than spend hours sifting through their grovelling Vlad-worshipping forum with the way-back-machine. Unfortunately, the way-back-machine doesn't have all the gems of insanity that were posted there.

You jumped to a number of conclusions, failed to check your sources, and paid scant heed to the relative authority of the sources you did cite.

On the contrary the evidence of quackery is court-quality-- If Vlad decided to sue me for libel I'd be able to shove it up his ass and light it on fire.

.... while attributing "claims" to a vague "they" is a time-honored trick, it leaves you open to criticism from anyone who cares do do their homework.

Still creating ever more petty hoops for other people to jump through eh?

I did some digging based on this essay, tracking down the original sources and contacting some of the people involved.

Too bad you couldn't get a hold of Martin Wheeler to get the video of his no touch push. I bet you could even have convinced him to participate in the research group. :lame:

I agree wholeheartedly with one of your latter points, which was that if the senior Systema people are concerned about their image outside of their own organisation, they need to specifically clarify what is being presented in some of the online excerpts from their instructional DVDs.

"They" could just post a sticky on "their" forum announcing that "they" have been misunderstood and that "they" don't teach psychic BS. Then "they" could post here announcing that there never has been a BS component in "their" system. "They" could also have a video on "their" showing how "they" have been misunderstood. Then "they" tell "their" students that "they" have misunderstood "their" teachings and that "they" never taught psychic BS. Lastly, "they" change the name from psychic energy to anything that doesn't reek of mysticism.

On the other hand, most of these clips are edited together and posted anonymously and there's often no way of knowing who is actually responsible for them.

Easily remedied. See above.

Regarding some of the items presented as "evidence" in your post -

Are quotes from Vlad's students not evidence?

The review from the Dojo of the Four Winds website doesn't represent any sort of Systema claim one way or the other - it was written by a student from another style who had attended a five-day Systema workshop.

That's 5 more days than you. Anyhow, 5 days of Ryabko seminars is enough to form an intelligent opinion.

He made a lot of far-out claims; . . . I submit that citing his article as an example of "Systema quackery" is an example of very casual and biased reportage.

Yeah, I'm the one with a serious bias. :icon_roll
Taken alone, the seminar review might be dismissed. However, because it is consistent with quotes from systema students, clips of beyond the physical, etc. it is pretty solid.

The "Mind Warrior" article was written by Trevor Robinson in the year 2000, and at that time his only experience with Systema was having attended a two-week workshop. I recently contacted Mr. Robinson and he confirmed that he had been under pressure from the magazine he was writing for and had based the "bioplasmic energy" information on another (non-Systema) source.

Even if that article had never been written and Vlad had never posted it on his site or if he had at least bothered to divorce himself from it there is much more evidence of quackery than that.

The consensus amongst senior, contemporary Systema practitioners is that the "no-touch" work is based on subtle psychological and physical skills, not magic, chi power or parapsychology.

Sure, Westerners are far less likely than Russians to accept psychic energy so they'll be embarrassed by the BS and try to explain it away. A couple years ago this wasn't the case, stories of BS abounded.

The various "psychic" exercises cited in Mr. Robinson's article were, in fact, not Systema exercises at all. They were derived from a question and answer section in a Systema handbook,

K, so they're not part of Systema, just in the Official Systema Handbook? Their key advertising point seems to be that Systema was used by the cream of the Spetznaz teams, so saying that it's not part of Systema is just ghey.

The alleged "no-touch push" incident seems to have been as controversial within Systema circles as it was here, subject to more or less wild speculation. Either way, again, this was a notable and isolated incident, not "Systema dogma".

There are many no touch stories in Systema, not an isolated incident, so I'm assuming you mean the Martin Wheeler push caught on videotape. Wasn't that controversial, more like a few guys are embarrassed their MA is stuck in dark age type mysticism.

Several senior Systemists have commented to the effect that, "in the early days", Systema attracted more than its share of kooks.

By that definition we're still in the early days. It speaks loudly that wackos select into Systema like pedophiles into the priesthood. Systema will continue to adapt to a Western culture, so the no-touch BS that is already fading should be gone in another decade.

That's what a lucky hard shot on the BP typically does, by frogging the muscles surrounding the lungs (you probably already know this, but the lungs don't "breathe," so much as "get breathed" by the intercostals). Not exactly a technique I'd try to rely on, given that anybody who's in shape has way too much muscle mass to bother, but I can't think of any other strike off the top of my head that'd do the job...

That's what a lucky hard shot on the BP typically does, by frogging the muscles surrounding the lungs (you probably already know this, but the lungs don't "breathe," so much as "get breathed" by the intercostals). Not exactly a technique I'd try to rely on, given that anybody who's in shape has way too much muscle mass to bother, but I can't think of any other strike off the top of my head that'd do the job...

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Who says that all the retards from Fort Worth move to Dallas? This is one of the reasons why System is full of bullshit.

In defense of this, from what I've gathered, apparently there are different groups of Systema, but it's weird how such a relatively young system is already getting such a bad wrap.

That's what a lucky hard shot on the BP typically does, by frogging the muscles surrounding the lungs (you probably already know this, but the lungs don't "breathe," so much as "get breathed" by the intercostals). Not exactly a technique I'd try to rely on, given that anybody who's in shape has way too much muscle mass to bother, but I can't think of any other strike off the top of my head that'd do the job...

Old boxing trick is to punch someone in the diaphragm while they are inhaling. When you exhale your muscles tense up and protect your organs, but when you inhale your diaphragm is vulnerable no matter how hard your abs are. I've yet to find anyone that is an exception to that rule.

Try it out. Exhale all the air out of your lungs and press on your diaphragm. Inhale and do the same. Much softer.